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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1807

A thought, then, is sometimes a simple movement and sometimes an action of the soul.

March 21.

— Like those clocks that repeat the same hours twice.

... greater, stronger, more abundant than all the others, he will nevertheless make less agreeable works.

Leave your grave poetry its slow gait; little steps do not suit it.

Of poetic matter. that is, of luminous and sonorous matter, or at the very least of phosphorescent light. Or, if its substance is common, of matter cut, rounded, arranged as stone is in palaces, into doors, windows, columns, pilasters, capitals.

Of poetic matter — and that — it must be either transparent or sonorous, or artfully worked; that thus all matter can become poetic if it is cut, polished, and arranged as stone is in buildings that are beautiful. The poet can therefore build with air or metals, with phosphorus or sounds, with iron, with marble, even brick if he pleases, with clay, provided he has the talent to mold it well. He will always make a good work if he knows how to be a decorator in the details and an architect in the whole: for all the other arts must join with his.

A single beautiful sound is more beautiful than long speech.

Historical truths, — knowledge of them being little needed by the soul.

March 22.

Poetry of ideas.

Winter is more a time of piety. Religious festivals were therefore to be more numerous then.

— since there are only trees of this height. God having created us fitted to love what we were to see and having inspired in us tastes suited to the pleasures he destined for us. That is why one is right to say that art, to please us, must resemble nature. For it is toward loving nature that we are first disposed at birth. But, as we are destined also to love something more beautiful than what we have, art, to enchant us, needs both to recall to us the real nature in which we are and to make us perceive that other nature to come.

Apart from the range of sight, our taste for the length of perpendicular lines must not exceed the measure of, etc. (To reconsider.)

In place of those illnesses that attacked life, others [have] come that attack only health and happiness in us. With those, one lives infirm and feels both at once or alternately reasonable and capricious.

T154.Movement and action remain distinct ways of describing a thought. Soul is the source noun; it is not replaced by mind to make the terminology uniform.

T386.The dash-led comparison remains without a supplied governing clause.

T155.The imperative remains. Grave, slow gait, and little steps retain the personified movement of poetry; the comparison does not introduce a meter absent from the source.

T156.Matter keeps matière through the material imagery. Phosphorescent light renders lumière phosphorique as a glow, without asserting a particular modern physical mechanism. The source’s period followed by lowercase that is remains; pilasters and capitals keep their architectural senses. The Académie’s 1798 Phosphore entry describes naturally or artificially glowing substances and gives lumière phosphorique; this historical usage supports the image of light.

T389.The enlarged facsimile confirms a diaeresis in poëtique and a period after that word before lowercase c’est. The opening and alternative are nominal constructions without a supplied finite governing verb.

T157.The opening Of and the interrupted and that remain. Air, metals, phosphorus, sounds, iron, marble, brick, and clay preserve the source order. It in mold it refers most directly to clay. Decorator in details and architect in the whole retain the complementary roles.

T390.The dash-delimited et que remains without a supplied governing assertion. Poëtique and poëte retain their diaereses. Scait is printed without a cedilla. The damaged right margin partly obscures avec near the brick/clay transition and et before architecte; these readings are restored from the surviving print and syntax.

T391.The nominal opening and participial explanation remain without an added finite verb.

T158.Were to be keeps the past modal formulation of devoient without changing the sentence into a verified count of festivals. The brief context does not fully settle expectation versus obligation. Winter remains a time more suited to piety in the source’s comparison.

T392.Hyver retains its printed y. The imperfect devoient is not modernized into a different tense.

T159.The opening since clause and the subsequent God having clauses remain fragments. The real nature in which we are and the other nature to come are not assigned new names. The required resemblance to nature and the need to show something more beautiful remain together.

T393.The opening puisque and subsequent participial Dieu nous ayant clauses remain without a supplied main predicate. Rappeller and appercevoir retain double letters; vuë retains its diaeresis. The second paragraph ends with the unfinished mesure de, etc. and an unaccented A in the revising circumstance.

T160.Perpendicular keeps the geometrical term. The measure of remains unfinished before etc. The parenthetical To reconsider is Joubert’s own instruction and remains in his paragraph.

T161.Have corresponds to the source’s supplied auxiliary [est], adjusted to the plural English subject others. The paragraph contrasts attacks on life with attacks on health and happiness. Reasonable and capricious remain possible both at once and alternately; no modern diagnosis is supplied.